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The original perovskite, calcium titanium oxide, is a mineral (see picture) discovered in the Ural mountains in 1839 and named after Count Lev Perovski, a Russian mineralogist. Since then, the name has come to be used for a number of materials that share a similar crystal structure.

Much of the interest in perovskites comes because those which combine metal atoms with chlorine, bromine or iodine (members of a group of elements called halogens) are semiconductors. This makes them potentially useful in a variety of electronics. In particular, one promising feature of metal halides is that they can be used to make new types of solar cells which are more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity than the silicon-based cells currently employed. Oxford PV, a British company, is bringing some of the first perovskite solar cells to market.

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Transfers from parents—either in the form of gifts or inheritances—have received much attention as a source of inequality. This paper uses a 19-year panel of administrative data for the population of Norway to examine the share of the Total Inflows available to an individual (defined as the capitalized sum of net labor income, government transfers, and gifts and inheritances received over the period) accounted for by capitalized gifts and inheritances. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that gifts and inheritances represent a small share of Total Inflows; this is true across the distribution of Total Inflows, as well as at all levels of net wealth at a point in time. Gifts and inheritances are only an important source of income flows among those who have very wealthy parents. Additionally, gifts and inheritances have very little effect on the distribution of Total Inflows – when we do a counterfactual Total Inflows distribution with zero gifts and inheritances, it is not much different from the actual distribution. Our findings suggest that inheritance taxes may do little to mitigate the extreme wealth inequality in society.

Wealth inequality (and it’s red-headed stepchild, income inequality) is a problem only to people who think that they ought to have as much wealth as anybody else.

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Can Godzilla be far behind?

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Apple is continuing to develop technology that could allow virtually invisible input areas that can display information to a user while replacing physical buttons or controls on its products.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to Apple covering a “concealable input region for an electronic device.” The patent, U.S. Patent No. 11,237,655, describes technology that uses microperforations to sense input.

Apple says the point of the patent is to do away with the “large buttons, keys, or other mechanically-actuated structures” used to sense inputs on a device. That’s because traditional input elements “may lack flexibility or adaptability and may permanently indicate the presence of the input device.”

As a Apple stockholder, I encourage them to do so.

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The remedy was a new type of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) called “Stanford neuromodulation therapy.” By adding imaging technology to the treatment and upping the dose of rTMS, scientists have developed an approach that’s more effective and works more than eight times faster than the current approved treatment.

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If your wallet gets stolen, this facilitates identity fraud like you wouldn’t believe.

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An autonomous surgery robot is now one step closer to hospital operating rooms, having performed a tricky medical procedure on live pigs — and done it even better than a human surgeon could.

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Not to be confused with the One True Roy.

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An Israeli arms firm, Smart Shooter, has developed SMASH Dragon, an armed hexacopter that carries a stabilized gun platform that can be armed with a 5.56mm assault rifle or a 7.62mm sniper rifle. SMASH Dragon uses the same SMASH 2000 computerized rifle scope Smart Shooter introduced in 2018, but with addition of a new digital camera with zoom that enables the operator to search for and identify targets at longer ranges day or night, or set the system to automatically scan for certain types of targets. Armed with the 7.62mm rifle, SMASH Dragon can hit stationary targets over 300 meters distant with the first shot. Against moving quadcopters or fixed wing UAVs that range is closer to 200 meters. The hexacopter (six rotor motors instead of four on a quadcopter) can carry a payload of up to 10 kg (22 pounds). The rifles are equipped with larger magazines to reduce the frequency of landing the hexacopter to reload. Both the weapons system and hexacopter are battery operated, which limits flight time to under 60 minutes before a recharge is needed. There is also SMASH Hopper, a 15 kg (33 pound) version that can be mounted on vehicles or stationary platforms.

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Not a parady, so far as I can tell. (But who knows these days?)

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A Japanese research team said it developed a vaccine to remove so-called zombie cells that accumulate with age and damage nearby cells, causing aging-related diseases including arterial stiffening.

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Hot a firearm – probably doesn’t come under firearm laws.

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WalletHub looked at state resignation rates over the last 12 months based on numbers from the BLS to determine where people are quitting their jobs the most – and the least. Alaska and Wyoming topped the list of quit-heavy states while New York, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia saw the lowest quit rates among workers.

Companies in New York, Pennsylvania and other states with low resignation rates have embraced remote work arrangements more so than employers in rural states, which is one of the biggest factors driving quit levels, Jill Gonzalez, a senior analyst at WalletHub, tells CNBC Make It.

Workers in the food and hospitality industries have been quitting at higher rates than those in other fields – and these industries represent some of the biggest employers in Wyoming, Alaska and more states struggling to retain talent.

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Those Ukranians are so excitable.

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Call me when I can buy them on Amazon.

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And about time, too.

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Scientists have a new understanding of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism that challenges assumptions about ancient technology.

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The search for sustainable alternatives to common plastics has researchers investigating how their building blocks can be sourced from places other than petroleum, and for scientists behind a promising new study, this has led them straight to the sweet stuff. The team has produced a new form of plastic with “unprecedented” mechanical properties that are maintained throughout standard recycling processes, and managed to do so using sugar-derived materials as the starting point.

The breakthrough comes from scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Duke University in the US, who in their pursuit of more sustainable plastics turned to sugar alcohols. These organic compounds carry a similar chemical structure to the sugars they’re derived from, which the scientists found can bring some unique benefits to the production of plastic.

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But rubber tires help grip the ground and cushion bumps. How could a steel tire even come close to a smooth, safe ride? Built into the mechanical wheel is a pneumatic suspension system — an air suspension system powered by a pump or compressor that floods air into flexible bellows. That will allow the steel wheel to grip the road on tight turns and keep the passengers from bouncing out of their seats.

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“It’s a radically different way to accelerate projectiles and launch vehicles to hypersonic speeds using a ground-based system,” Jonathan Yaney, CEO of SpinLaunch, a California-based spaceflight technology company that has been involved in the development of the system, told CNBC. According to its website, the company aims to build “the world’s lowest-cost space launch system.”

Wonder whether that would work for ICBMs…?

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I am less disturbed about autonomous vehicles on rail roads than on highways.

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ByFusion uses a combination of steam and compression to shape all kinds of plastics, even nonrecyclables, into standard building blocks called ByBlocks. These can be used to build anything from fences and retaining walls to public terraces and bus stops, but the real stars are the patented machines used to make them. Called Blockers, these hefty machines are fed mounds of plastic that are squeezed into blocks—no sorting or cleaning needed. After years of R&D, the company has installed a full production unit in L.A., where it can process 450 tons of plastic per year, with 12 more Blockers in the pipeline across the country.

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The team, led by Professor Luc Mongeau and Assistant Professor Jianyu Li, developed a new injectable hydrogel for wound repair. The hydrogel is a type of biomaterial that provides room for cells to live and grow. Once injected into the body, the biomaterial forms a stable, porous structure allowing live cells to grow or pass through to repair the injured organs.

“The results are promising, and we hope that one day the new hydrogel will be used as an implant to restore the voice of people with damaged vocal cords, for example laryngeal cancer survivors,” says Guangyu Bao.

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An app to (a) plan your food life and (b) order the ingredients for the meals.

Might be worth something.

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A team scoured the human proteome for antimicrobial molecules and found thousands, plus a surprise about how animals evolved to fight infections.

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Kill mosquitos, de-ice roads – is there anything that beets can’t do?

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Since being deported from Australia last week, men’s tennis champion Novak Djokovic has returned to Belgrade, where he lives with his family.

Having inadvertently (or not) become the locus of the international debate about mandatory vaccinations, Reuters reported that Djokovic and his wife hold a combined 80% stake in Danish biotech firm QuantBioRes, which is working on developing a cure for SARS-CoV-2.

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And not one of them has a government ‘sell-by date’ sticker. Outrageous!

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If you’ve been around the computing industry lately, you’ve probably brushed against the term SBOM at some point or another. By now, it is common knowledge that a Software Bill of Materials is becoming an increasingly expected requirement from software releases. Reading through blog posts and social media, there still seems that some confusion persists about what an SBOM can/could do for your project. This post tries to lay down some basic facts about SBOMs and how they can help you and your project become a better citizen of the global software supply chain.

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If you were to ask any of the 1 million Americans living with multiple sclerosis, they’d probably say their disease started with changes so small they almost didn’t notice them: a wobbly step, a weakening grip, sight going soft around the edges. But MRI scans of their brains — dotted with ghostly white scars — would tell a different story.

Those scars are signs of inflammation dating back multiple years. Each spot represents a dead zone filled with mangled remains of thousands, sometimes millions, of neurons. Like city blocks going dark during a power outage, these cells blinked out one by one after an immune storm stripped off the insulating myelin sheath that helps them send and receive electrical signals. But what triggers the immune system to turn on itself is still a mystery.

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Well, there you go.

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In an attempt to clear the winter roads (and make deicing easier on the environment, vehicles, and infrastructure), cities across the U.S. are exploring rock salt alternatives — and beet juice is one of the most promising.

Gotta use ’em for something….

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Zuckerberg’s company, Meta (formerly Facebook), announced it would lease offices in a massive new building in Austin, Texas. Big tech companies, who cut their teeth and built empires in California, are fleeing the state and relocating to Texas. It’s almost as if high taxes, stifling corporate regulations, and out-of-control housing costs are unattractive to businesses and long-term sustainability. Who knew?

Eeewww….

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After single injection, paralyzed animals regained ability to walk within four weeks

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that L.A. had commuter trains.

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It’s not often you hear the words “John Deere” and “controversy” together, but that’s exactly what is coming to pass as the agricultural staple looks to debut its first fully autonomous tractor.

Equipped with six pairs of stereo cameras and AI, John Deere’s new 8R tractor can both perceive its environment and navigate, according to a new writeup by Wired. It relies on neural network algorithms analyzing data streaming into its cameras.

In fact, it can even “find its way to a field on its own when given a route and coordinates, then plow the soil or sow seeds without instructions, avoiding obstacles as it goes,” the report says.

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An adventurous seal pup made its way from Scotland to the front door of a pub near Bristol.

The lone pup made the 300-mile journey and turned up at The Old Lock and Weir in Hanham on Sunday.

British Divers Marine Life Rescue Service attended to safely rescue the animal and said it had been tagged over the border on 21 June.

Landlord Daniel Rawlins said: “He was like a mini-celebrity. He was quite friendly and cute.”

Presumably he was eventually arrested for being unvaccinated and not wearing a mask.

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India has just become the first nation to authorize a new COVID-19 vaccine called Corbevax, which is being called “the world’s COVID-19 vaccine” due to its low cost and ease of production.

“If you’re talking about a serious effort to vaccinate the world and prevent new variants from emerging, we think we’re now going to make a very important contribution to this,” Peter Hotez, who co-developed the shot at Texas Children’s Hospital, told CBS Austin.

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The heart of the module is the photovoltaic system, which is combined with a heat pump as a heat and cold generator and a decentralized ventilation device with heat recovery. All the necessary components for the system technology are housed in the facade element, which implies a high degree of prefabrication that is claimed to be minimally invasive.

“We’re not renovating the entire building, just the facade,” explained Jan Kaier, project manager and scientist at Fraunhofer IEE. “In the future, the old facade will be replaced by new, industrially prefabricated modules with integrated system technology, which makes it multi-functional and adapts it to the new energy standards.”

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The World’s Best Rice comes in a sturdy, gold-embossed box containing six slender packages. Sold for ¥10,800 for 840 grams (that’s $95 for less than 2 pounds), it’s nearly 30 times more expensive than what you’d pay at a supermarket in Japan. The Guinness World Records named it the priciest rice on the planet in 2016. Japan’s rice milling and processing giant Toyo Rice Corporation, which sells the product mainly to well-to-do customers in Japan, the United States, and Singapore, commands the princely sum by blending several of the top-placed finalists chosen by judges in a blind tasting of the International Contest on Rice Taste Evaluation, the country’s most prestigious rice competition, which takes place each November. The winning batches are stored in temperature-controlled rooms for at least six months before the kernels are milled to remove the tawny outer bran—but never the ultrathin umami layer around the starchy core. The price is justified, Toyo Rice officials say, because you simply won’t find better-tasting short-grain white rice anywhere.

If that’s all you have to eat, you tend to focus on it.

Steve Sailer peers behind the curtain.

Men are just so much more nostalgic and loyal to their heroes than women are to their heroines. Some guy in Uruguay watched Die Hard when he was 13 and now he’ll pay via Video-On-Demand to see an action movie in which a 65 year old Bruce Willis appears for nine minutes.

Do any actresses generate that kind of loyalty among women? Maybe Bette Davis long ago … My father always complained about my mother dragging him to Bette Davis movies. But I don’t recall my mother being that much of a Bette Davis die-hard.

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Everyone knows that millions of people are leaving blue states and moving to red states, but I still haven’t have heard the liberal line on the phenomenon. They have to come up with an explanation other than the obvious one–liberal policies don’t work, and create inferior living conditions–but what is it? I am all ears.

Mark Perry lists the top ten states that are gaining and losing residents (raw numbers, not per capita) and examines the variables that explain the data. This chart sums up his findings.

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mmune systems defeated the virus, achieving a “sterilizing” cure for HIV — and they hope studying these women will lead to a therapy for other patients.

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Our patented Visual Indication System™ turns from red to black as you tighten the bolt. SmartBolts give you peace of mind because you know your bolts are doing their job.

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The U.K. just made a big investment in nuclear energy, giving Rolls-Royce nearly $300 million to develop a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs).

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the U.K. to deploy more low-carbon energy than ever before and ensure greater energy independence,” Kwasi Kwarteng, the U.K.’s business and energy secretary, said of the deal.

No, the ‘future of clean energy’ is fusion. But these would help get us there.

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When asked if Bluetooth is holding back Apple’s hardware and “stifling sound quality,” Geaves declined to say too much, but he said that Apple “concentrates very hard” on getting the most out of Bluetooth, and that “it’s fair to say” that Apple would “like more bandwidth.”

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Don’t ever say that we don’t have useful stuff here.

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Nuclear power is going mini. Former SpaceX engineers are creating a portable microreactor that is lightweight and cost-effective, calling it the “world’s first portable, zero-emissions power source.”

It was originally a project imagined for Mars, but the team decided Earth needed it more (or, at least, sooner). So, they formed a company called Radiant to continue to develop the microreactor. Once ready, it could provide instant power to hard-to-reach places and quick installation in populated areas.

I’d buy one.

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Hammer tech.

UPDATE: Tesla: Nothing Says Customer Satisfaction Like 30Kg of Dynamite